Giles hopes to be fit for India tour

Ashley Giles says he is likely to be fit for England's tour of India which starts in February after a successful operation on his right hip. "I'm optimistic about my chances," Giles told the London-based newspaper The Daily Mail. "The surgeon has had a good clear-out of my hip and performed four jobs on the injury which cut short my Pakistan tour."

The operation revealed that Giles is showing early signs of arthritis and it may be only in late January that he starts to bowl again ahead of England's return to the subcontinent on February 13. Football physiotherapists had advised that Giles may need three months to recover after the surgery which took place in Cambridge.

"The good news is he [the surgeon Richard Villar] didn't find anything he wasn't expecting. Hopefully that will be the end of it and I'll be ready for India in late February and the non-stop cricket after that."

Giles has been carrying the injury since April, when he damaged his right hip playing for Warwickshire against Sussex in the County Championship. He missed the two-Test series against Bangladesh but physiotherapy and cortisone injections allowed him to play in the Ashes and the Pakistan Tests. But now the effects of the injections were beginning to wear off and, when the injury worsened between the first and second Test, Giles decided it was time for an operation.